POLITICAL cartoonists are sharpening their pencils for a new exhibition in Stratford.
Celebrating more than two centuries of political cartoons inspired by Shakespeare and to coincide with its forthcoming Rome Season, the Royal Shakespeare Company opens new free exhibition Draw New Mischief on February 25.
The exhibition will include historical works from key political moments in time such as the 1846 cartoon ‘The Fall of Caesar’ showing Prime Minister of the day Robert Peel, who had just been forced to resign, as Caesar being murdered by his former allies.
More contemporary works include Peter Schrank’s 2015 depiction of Ed Miliband and Nicola Sturgeon as the star crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet, and Morten Morland’s cartoon of David Cameron as Hamlet gazing at Boris Johnson’s skull from last April.
Alongside the exhibited works, the Royal Shakespeare Company has commissioned five current cartoonists to create new works using Shakespeare’s Rome plays to respond to political events happening during the time of the exhibition.
These new cartoons will be produced and exhibited over the period of the exhibition running until October.
The commissioned artists are the Guardian’s Steve Bell; the Daily Telegraph’s Christian Adams; Ann Telnaes from the Washington Post; Victor Ndula, a cartoonist for the Kenyan national newspaper the Star; and Lorna Miller, a cartoonist whose work has appeared in Private Eye and the Morning Star.
Visit www.rsc.org.uk for further details.
